Charged particle beam apparatuses have many functions in a plurality of industrial fields, including, but not limited to, inspection of semiconductor devices during manufacturing, exposure systems for lithography, detecting devices and testing systems. Thus, there is a high demand for structuring and inspecting specimen within the micrometer and nanometer scale.
Charged particle beam devices such as ion beam devices, electron beam devices and the like, have experienced an increasing demand throughout the recent years. Due to their application for inspection services, the requirements for the charged particle beam devices have also increased with regard to their construction and performance, e.g. for use in production lines.
Modern charged particle beam devices, particularly those for inspection applications, testing applications, lithography applications and the like, but also those for analyzing applications, are therefore often miniaturized, using inter alia mini-lenses to decrease the device size. Further, there is a desire to reduce the optical path of a charged particle beam device for devices which would not be considered as being miniaturized per se.
In order to improve the function of a miniaturized lens in a charged particle beam device, a tool is provided that utilizes a miniaturized construction and allows the correction of the spherical aberrations within a charged particle beam device.